This paper is concerned with the utilisation of vehicle space. It argues that there is considerable potential for making better use of the cubic capacity of lorries, thereby cutting the cost of road haulage and reducing its impact on the environment. Many low density products fill the available vehicle space long before the maximum legal weight is reached. Given the tight limits on the height to which most products can be stacked, loading is usually constrained more by the available floor space (or ‘deck area’) on the lorry than by its total cubic capacity. The insertion of an upper deck into lorry trailers relaxes this constraint and permits greater load consolidation.

It is generally acknowledged that the average density of loads is diminishing. This appears to be the result of changes in the nature of products, increases in the amount of packaging material and greater use of unitised handling equipment. At the same time the height to which loads are stacked is also declining. Over the past 15 years the maximum permitted weight of articulated vehicles has increased by a greater margin than their cubic capacity and deck area. It is likely, therefore, that an increasing proportion of loads are volume-constrained and likely to benefit from greater use of a double-deck / high-cube vehicles.

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